Learning
Design
LEARNING DESIGN UNIT | DIVISION OF STUDENT LEARNING | ISSUE 1 AUTUMN 2016
It is a great pleasure to be
launching the newsletter for the
Learning Design Unit. Following
on from feedback in last year’s
Your Voice Survey and our desire
to keep you abreast of
the activities of the Learning
Design Unit, we are producing
a quarterly newsletter to alert you to our processes
and provide updates on developments throughout the
year. We hope you enjoy our first issue and appreciate
your feedback.
Learning: u!magine, Learning Technologies, Learning
Resources, Learning Academy and The Education For
Practice Institute. Our values are to be professional,
innovative, collaborative and agile.
For those new to CSU, the role of Learning Design Unit
is to support, advise and guide staff in best practice in
course and subject design and implementation, and
the development of effective and appropriate learning
and teaching strategies. We work in cooperation with
Faculties and the other Units of the Division of Student
Associate Professor Elizabeth Thomson
Director, Learning Design
2016 is a big year for the Learning Design Unit. We are
reorganising and upskilling ourselves to support the
Three Faculty Common Support Model and will have
new teams and a revamped Service Request System
ready to go by July. The next newsletter, in June, will
give further detail and explain our new processes for
requesting Learning Design Support.
Smart Learning Course Design Update
The Learning Design Unit oversees the Smart Learning project. As Wave 1 and Wave 2 courses
work through the design process, feedback on principles, workload and technology has been
used to refine the processes and systems.
The result, mid-year 2015, was the
Smart Learning Refresh plan and a
commitment at senior levels to the
renewed Course Design Process.
Robinson. “The set of nine GLOs –
and feedback from the GLO advisers
– enables new perspectives
on a course.”
This plan focused on better meeting
the needs of faculties, aligning
courses to the Curriculum, Learning
& Teaching Framework, the Distance
Education Strategy and the Australian
Qualifications Framework. It also
ensures incorporating the revised CSU
Graduate Learning Outcomes.
The process allows for feedback
at multiple waypoints and allows
teams to revisit earlier stages of the
process to ensure that, ultimately,
CSU’s courses meet the needs of
our students, facilitate their success
and prepare them for graduate
employability.
These two courses are now more
holistic and address issues which are not
typically well represented in professional
standards, such as sustainability and
global citizenship.
CAROLINE ROBINSON
The design project team has revised
the model for designing, developing
and implementing courses that
ensures address the revised CSU
Graduate Learning Outcomes. “Using
this set of GLOs in the curriculum
review process for the Bachelor
of Occupational Therapy and the
Bachelor of Physiotherapy has
resulted in improved course design,”
says Course Director Caroline
Wave Progress
The Curriculum, Learning and
Teaching Sub Plan commits the
Faculties and the Division of Student
Learning to completing the design
and implementation phases of Smart
Learning Wave 1 and Wave 2 courses.
At this point, courses are on target for
approval at the May Faculty Courses
Committee meetings. The Course
Design Team has been working
closely with the Course Directors to
guide them through the process and
the Learning Design Unit has allocated
extra Educational Designer time to
meet these goals.
Communications
Update
The Division of Student Learning
website is being revised to
communicate the Smart Learning
process. Information is currently
available about Professional
Development and the CourseSpace
tool. A detailed Question and Answer
page and Help documentation will be
available soon.
The site is at:
www.csu.edu.au/division/studentlearning/home/csu-curriculum/coursedesign/design
CourseSpace
Modifications to the CourseSpace software, the bespoke design component of the original
Smart Tools package, are taking place on a regular basis based on feedback from users.
The priority with
CourseSpace is
improving the user
experience, enhancing the software to
better meet the needs of course teams
who are working in it.
Yann Guisard, a Faculty of Science
Course Director who has been using
the tool and providing feedback,
is excited about the potential of the
upcoming addition of an exporting
function. “I think that this new function
will add tremendous value to the Tool.
In particular, it will permit teams to
engage with staff members that
are not necessarily users of the tool and
would therefore be distracted by the Tool.”
In response to user requests, we are
investigating bigger projects
I can see Exports used to create
outputs like mind maps and constructive
alignment maps
YANN GUISARD
Professional Development and Support
In response to feedback, a thorough Course Design Professional Development plan is
being implemented.
With a focus on Course Directors,
but also recognising the needs of
other staff from Educational Design-ers
to Executive Deans, we are providing
flexible professional development to
suit the different contexts across
schools and faculties, covering
all aspects of course design from
preparation to implementation.
Course Design Process
Selection
Course selection
Orientation Data collection Team building
Design Phase 1
CourseSpace
set up
Integrated
Standard
Baseline
Products
Waypoint 1
Feedback Cycle
Evaluation
Design Phase 2
Assessments
Subjects
Waypoint 2
Design Phase 3
Modules
Educational Designers are undertaking a
3 month program during which they will
work through a ‘miniature’ course design.
The goal of this is to provide them with
skills to support course teams throughout the process as well as provide key
pedagogical resources for academics.
The process, called a sprint, requires
in a brief outage usually in the evening;
we will inform users ahead of time
that the outage will be occurring. Two
sprints took place in 2015, with 5 more
currently scheduled.
Workload planning
& goal setting
Preparation
Current professional development for
Wave 1 and 2 course teams is ‘as
needed’, based on where they are in the
process. With the next wave of courses
to enter the process, professional
development will be embedded in the
course design process. An i2 site is being
created for professional development,
and help documentation for both the
process and the software are being
developed and will be housed in DOMS
and accessible from the DSL website.
such as merging the Accreditation
Module from Smart Tools Version 1
into CourseSpace, the integration with
the MSI subject outline system and a
batch transfer of data to CASIMS.
Team selection
Finalise
course
Waypoint 3 & Course approval
Development
Build
Build sites
resources
Subject
outline
Team
preparation
Teacher
preparation
Implementation
Pedagogy
in practice
Professional
development
Analytics &
feedback
Evaluation
Team
collaboration
Upcoming Sprints
Key Benefit
Status
Go Live Date
Usability improvements
Ready for CSU testing
After May FCC
Improvements to feedback - design
and develop user in-terface prototypes
for likert graphs; data migration
Development started on February 8
After May FCC
Improvements to feedback - develop
detailed feedback interfaces;
feedback export; data migration
Development to start on March 14
After May FCC
Improvements to feedback - reports
Development to start on April 18
After May FCC
Exporting
User stories drafted
To be determined
Full details about each CourseSpace sprint are available at http://bit.ly/cs-sprints.
Learning Design and the Three Faculty
Common Support Model
The Learning Design Unit currently has a dispersed organisational structure in that many staff are
situated in the Schools. Faculty teams, managed by Learning Design Managers, include Educational
Designers, Educational Support Coordinators and Media Technologists.
leadership to articulate the priorities to
meet the outputs of the Curriculum,
Learning and Teaching Sub Plan.
This model has allowed academics
to access the Unit’s services ad hoc,
with staff responding to each request.
In 2015, CSU began a process of
restructure to, amongst other things,
address the university’s market
position with concerted efforts to lift
enrolments and reduce attrition rates.
It was decided that the university
needed to address priority courses
and that Learning Design support
needed to be more targeted and
concentrated.
“This model of providing ‘just in time’
support using the Division’s Service
Request System will allow for more
targeted and equitable support for
staff who are teaching,” says Learning
Design (Arts) Manager Lynette Flynn.
To achieve this, there will no longer be
faculty teams per se; faculty priorities
will be serviced by two functional
teams—a Design Team and a Delivery
Team—with dedicated staff. The
Design Team will work with course
and subject reviews, and projects
that address enhancements relating
to assessment and online learning
innovations. The Delivery team will
respond to requests by academics
who are teaching.
Transitioning from faculty based teams to two
functional teams will allow us to better align to faculty
priorities within the Curriculum, Learning and Teaching
Sub Plan.
Team One
1 Manager - Design
1 Manager - Develop
The transition to this new
configuration is in the planning stage,
with implementation expected to be
in May 2016 just prior to the transition
of the whole university to the Three
Faculty Common Support Model.
As part of this restructure, the Media
Technology team and some of the
Educational Support Coordinators will
be moving to the Learning Resources
Unit, to better enable Learning
Design staff to focus on the Design
and Delivery model. We have also
acquired EDs that were formerly part
of the Faculty of Business.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ELIZABETH THOMSON, DIRECTOR, LEARNING DESIGN
At the moment, the Learning Design
Unit is working with the faculties
to determine targeted courses for
improvement. The unit director and
managers are meeting with faculty
Course
Design
Development
Delivery
Evaluate
Educational Designers
Team Two
Educational Designers
Educational Support
Coordinators
For more information about the
P: 02 6933 2056
Learning Design Unit contact:
E: [email protected]
W: csu.edu.au/division/student-learning/home/csu-curriculum/what-is-learning-design
JN: 40793 | Design and Print: CSU Print | [email protected]
1 Manager